


Vanquish.

by IggyBlue



Series: V. [10]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Bleh, Fluff, M/M, slice-of-life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 20:10:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7546173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IggyBlue/pseuds/IggyBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There comes fallout even from victory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vanquish.

**Author's Note:**

> NB. This is set post-Frieza saga, assuming that Frieza really was killed in the Namek explosion, and Vegeta attained SS status when out searching/training in space.

The morning air was crisp as Vegeta touched down at their usual meeting spot. Still, the piercing sun shone just enough to make the atmosphere comfortable. He waited just a few minutes before Kakarot phased into view.

"G'morning, Vegeta."

"Nnn."

There was a silence, so Vegeta broke it.

"So what did you want to do?"

"I dunno. Not anything, really."

"Huh." The man hadn't responded as brightly as was his custom. He seemed flushed, stressed. "Kakarot." He said sternly. "Something's bothering you."

Kakarot exhaled, nodding in a resigned manner. "Yeah."

"Did I do something...?"

"Oh! No." Kakarot shook himself from the daze he'd been in. "Ah, me and Chi Chi had a fight."

"About...?"

"I don't even know anymore." The man looked truly defeated.

"Oh." Vegeta didn't know what to offer in order to cheer him up. He tried to conjure something up, but faltered.

Kakarot seemed to notice. "It's alright. I'll be fine. Thanks, Vegeta."

"Oh..." He hadn't done much. "Alright then."

"Sorry," Kakarot said sheepishly. "I thought I'd snap out of it when I saw you. I usually do."

"Huh."

"Did _you_ have anything in mind for today?"

Vegeta mulled it over. "Perhaps the gravity room...?"

"Hmm, good idea! We can practice in base form. Take my hand and I'll take us there."

Vegeta hesitated, looking at the outstretched hand.

"You prefer to fly?" Kakarot sensed something. "Wait-- Gohan...?"

Lo and behold, the child dropped out of the sky to join them.

"Hey buddy," Kakarot crouched down and hugged the boy. "What are you doing here?"

"I dunno. I just wanted to see you dad." He mumbled.

"Does your mother know you're here?"

He shook his head, and Vegeta cackled. "Attaboy!"

Kakarot gave him a dour look, then turned back to his son. "How did you come here, then?"

"Out the window." Vegeta burst into laughter. They both looked at him, but he was too wrapped up in hysterics to care.

"Am I in trouble?"

"No, no little bud. But it's best to always go with one of us if you want to go somewhere. We don't want you getting lost or hurt or anything." Kakarot looked over again, eyebrows knitted. "Vegeta, are you okay over there?"

"I'm fine." He wheezed out. 

"What's funny?"

"He went out the _window_."

"Is that bad?" The boy asked his father.

"No," Vegeta answered in his stead, "No, it was smart. With your mother, I'd escape out the window too." He chuckled a little more.

"Vegeta, _please_." Kakarot whined as the little one crawled into his grasp.

"Heh heh. Alright."

"Daddy." The boy mumbled into the man's arm as he held him.

"Hmm? What's wrong bud?"

He mumbled unintelligibly.

Vegeta had finally calmed down again. "What does he want?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Just love. You know." Kakarot held the boy until he pulled back out of his father's grasp, head bowed and bashful.

Vegeta was a little confounded - was this what fathers and sons did? He watched as Kakarot fawned over the little one, holding his hands and talking quietly, comfortingly, to the child. Vegeta felt strange at the sight.

"You wanna hang around with us for a little bit, then I'll take you home?"

The boy toed the dirt.

"Your mother just wants to know you're safe."

"Alright." The boy muttered.

Kakarot was brushing the boy's fringe from his face when Vegeta noticed something. "The boy's hair grows long?"

"Uh... yeah." Kakarot was puzzling over something. "Wait... is Saiyan hair not supposed to grow? Cause mine never did."

"Correct... it grows to a certain length, then new hair grows when the old falls out or is pulled out. Does his grow indefinitely?"

"Yeah, I think so. Gee, I never realised that, Vegeta. Seriously. I never needed a haircut and it was the weirdest thing cause everyone else did."

He shrugged. "Convenient, I guess."

"Yeah." Kakarot had a mischievous look about him. "Who told you that, huh? Nappa?"

Vegeta chuckled. "No, it was..." He paused, unsure if it was a sensitive topic. "It was Radditz."

"Oh..." Kakarot chuckled self consciously. "He had pretty epic hair, didn't he?"

"Yeah." The child had stiffened up at the name, and Kakarot noticed, patting him reassuringly on the back. 

"The child has trauma, huh?"

Kakarot nodded.

The kid piped up from behind Kakarot's leg. "You guys were really mean back then. How come you were so mean?"

Vegeta shrugged. "Many reasons. I haven't come to any particular conclusion."

"I think it's how you're raised." The boy replied immediately.

"Is that so."

"Yeah."

"Well I appreciate the insight." He replied sardonically.

A hand shoved him gently but pointedly. "Don't be a dick, Vegeta."

"He's sheltered. He'll go soft again."

"You say that as if it's a bad thing." A tense beat passed between them, but Kakarot visibly settled, adding quietly, "Let's not fight. I get enough of that at home."

"Alright." Vegeta acquiesced. 

The boy tentatively stepped closer. "Um, Vegeta? Your dad isn't around any more, right?"

"Right."

"So doesn't that make you king?"

"Well..." He cringed slightly. The child knew how to ask the hard questions, but was innocent enough that he didn't mind obliging. "I was never officially installed as king. That was my father's title... it belongs to him."

"Oh, I see." The boy thought it over a bit. "That's cool. I think a lot of people would really want to be king. But you're leaving that for your dad. That's nice." He commented.

"Hmph."

"Do you miss him?"

There was a strange feeling in his throat that he didn't care to endure any longer. "I don't know. Anyway, that's enough of your questions."

"Gohan!" Kakarot chided. "You have to be careful with the things you say, that could have been hurtful. We're lucky you asked Vegeta and not somebody nasty."

"Tch." Vegeta dismissed his comment. "Never mind. Are we going to stand around all day just talking? Let's train."

~

After having returned Gohan home later that morning, Kakarot spent the whole day with Vegeta. Yet as the sun set and their stomachs growled, neither made a move to return home.

"Did you wanna get dinner?"

It didn't matter to Vegeta either way, so he shrugged. "Sure."

Soon the clamour of plates rung out among lively conversations in the little place that Kakarot liked to frequent. The sun had set so all was dark beyond the small window they were sat beside, wooden interior of the place brightly lit and buzzing with activity.

"You're on edge." Kakarot observed.

"Yeah."

"People?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry. I'll choose somewhere quieter next time. Or your choice?"

"I don't know any places."

"Ask the Briefs."

Vegeta shrugged off the suggestion.

"Do you talk to them at all?"

"Not really."

The idea of a Vegeta that was so quiet seemed like a distant memory. "Is it the human thing? You just think they're lower?" He asked in a hushed voice.

"I don't know. They're annoying."

"Huh." Before he had time to think, another tray of plates were being set before them.

Before long they were satiated, with Kakarot eager to leave the bustle that had Vegeta so uneasy. The owners were always quick to warmly greet Kakarot and thank him profusely for his patronage, the tall Saiyan wholeheartedly offering them smiles and thanks in return. 

Boring of the display, Vegeta pulled out his credit card and gave it to the assistant, who scurried to put through the payment.

Kakarot soon appeared at his side.

"Wait, how'd you get that?"

"What?"

"That card."

"The money card? I asked the woman for it." The card was returned, and they made to leave.

"And she just gave it to you?"

"Well..."

"Ha ha, so she bargained with you for it huh?"

"Yeah. She made me help out in the lab with a few things." Vegeta hopped down a step into the evening air.

"That's it?"

"And the promise that I would assist with things occasionally."

"But what could you do for her anyway? Girl's a genius."

"Excuse you, Kakarot. I happen to be very intelligent myself. And resourceful. And useful."

"Never said you weren't. Just..."

"I gave her what insight I had, and also lifted some stuff that she couldn't with machines."

"Ah, I see."

"Blargh! How dare you." Vegeta crossed his arms, irritated.

Kakarot appeared beside him with beseeching eyes. "Aw, I was just curious. Sorry Geets."

"Quit demeaning me!"

"N'awwww Vegeta, I really am sorry!"

"You'd better be." He grumbled.

They were ambling aimlessly down the street at this point. "You wanna go back to Capsule Corp?"

"Sure." Vegeta waited, eyes forward, for Kakarot to reach out to him. When it didn't happen, he looked back. Kakarot was watching him. "What are you doing?"

"Could you grab me, for once?" The man's eyes were sincere, almost hurt.

Vegeta sighed within himself, ignoring a certain throbbing in his chest, and took Kakarot's wrist. Before they went, he could see a hint of a smile on the taller Saiyan's face.

~

They appeared on the balcony outside his room. With the doors closed and the lights off, there was only a soft glow coming from far off street lamps. Elsewhere within the building there was light and presumably activity, but here it was isolated, quiet and calm.

"Thank you." Kakarot whispered to him as he released the wrist in his grasp.

"What for." Vegeta mumbled, looking deliberately at the ground between their shoes.

"You know."

"Sorry."

"Sorry?"

"That I don't... you need..."

"No, it's fine."

"Okay."

They eventually sat down together on the balcony, neither keen to separate, and they looked over the grounds spread before the Capsule Corporation building. Minutes passed, and the mood had morphed into something sombre, Kakarot's face betraying some kind of conflict within. Eventually he spoke, hushed like the still air around them.

"I don't want to go home."

Vegeta looked at him sideways. "Then don't."

Kakarot turned to him. "Do you think so?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think I shouldn't go back."

"I think you should do what you want."

"What would you do if you were in my position?"

"The wife thing?" He guessed.

"Yeah."

It wasn't like Kakarot to be mulling relentlessly over a grievance. His response, though genuine, sounded sharp. "I'd take the child and go."

"You'd take Gohan?"

"You care for him."

"I think you do, too." Kakarot said quietly.

"He's Saiyan."

"Mmm. Thing is, though, you're kind of tied to my network of people. If I took Gohan and left... I couldn't leave you, too. And people go to you when I'm gone."

"I'm not... tied to anyone here. I'm only here because you are."

"Really?"

"I could leave if ever I cared to."

"Where do you have to go?"

"Anywhere."

"...Do you think I should do that? Do you want me to?"

"Not necessarily. It's your life. Your choices."

Kakarot's head dropped slightly, apparently having wanted an answer to his problems.

"Give it time." In these words Vegeta felt his years, they resonated up through his throat in the advice that had come so easily.

"Yeah?" Kakarot looked up at him, eyes large and inquiring, just the way Vegeta liked.

"Yep."

A few more minutes passed as Kakarot presumably reflected. "Vegeta?" He asked quietly. Something in his voice sounded dangerous, perhaps he was emboldened by the shroud of darkness that covered them both as they sat there.

"Mm?"

"How come you never asked me about my battle with Frieza?"

Vegeta choked on nothing. Gathering his thoughts, he spoke slowly. "I thought it best not to dredge all that up."

"How do you figure?"

"We... were enemies at that time. I... the humiliation." He winced.

"No, it's not like that."

"You know how it happened."

"Yeah, but you inspired me."

Vegeta sighed.

"Do you really not want to know?"

"I... _am_ curious."

"Anything in particular?"

Vegeta pondered his thoughts for a moment. "You fought him in base form, right?"

"Yeah. He had the upper hand for sure. It was looking real bad for a while there."

"How bad, though? You'd surpassed me by far at that point."

"He beat me around a lot. Once I'd given it my all, and he was still standing, I was convinced that I wasn't enough to beat him. He almost had me that many times... at one point nearly drowned me, and when it went black I had the most vivid dream, about the people I love..."

"Hnn."

"And it gave me the will to go on, so I got up. Of course will can only take you so far, and he got me back down. I was so sure that was it for me. It was the memory of you that convinced me not to give up."

"Really?" Vegeta asked skeptically.

There was a resolute look in Kakarot's eyes. "One hundred percent. Thinking of you reminded me of my heritage. It reminded me that besides friends and family, there were worlds out there depending on me to stop his tyranny. But... after my spirit bomb didn't defeat him, it was allowing my Saiyan blood to take over that allowed me to ascend."

"What did it feel like... that first time?"

"I can't remember that well. I think I blocked a lot of it out. It's a heavy memory..."

"It was bad?"

"It... happened after he killed my best friend. I just... lost all control. And it took over. It felt so unreal." Kakarot looked off into the depth of night as if searching for a memory on the horizon.

"Hmm." Vegeta pictured the moment, and something like pride swelled within him. "Did Frieza have much to say for himself, when he saw it?"

"He talked a lot of smack about the Saiyans. You wouldn't have been pleased." Kakarot said with a hint of a smile. "But when my victory was certain, there was no doubt. You should have seen the look on his face."

Vegeta laughed heartily.

"Yeah, I thought you'd like that."

"You know-" Vegeta started, "For the longest time I refused to accept what happened. Because it wasn't me. I wished so badly it could have been me to get revenge. But... now I'm okay with how it happened."

"I'm glad, Vegeta." Kakarot said warmly, quietly. "I bet that time was hard for you."

Vegeta scoffed at himself. "Real hard. Only because I made it to be."

"Did it take you long to ascend?"

"It felt like an eternity."

"I'm... sorry that I ascended first. It was your place."

"Pssh." Vegeta dismissed. "I only kept working for it, because I knew it could be done. You had shown me. For that, I thank you." He spoke into the air before them.

Kakarot melted a little, wrapping an arm around the prince's shoulder.


End file.
